Perspectives in Promoting Health and Wellbeing

Perspectives in Promoting Health and Wellbeing

Introduction

Addiction could be defined as psychological or physical dependence on any substance and withdrawal of the substance leads to withdrawal symptoms such as tremors, anorexia and somnolence. The behaviour of addiction is manifested by the frequent, obsessive quest or use of a substance in spite of its detrimental effects and hazardous health effects. Tobacco smoking is the most common addictive behaviour in the world which involves nicotine as the addictive substance. Nicotine acts by creating pleasurable effects that urges the smoker to thrive for more. Like other addictive substances, nicotine increases dopamine concentration in the brain that lightens mood and makes the person feel better. It also works on the sympathetic system of our body by slightly increasing heart rate and blood pressure. Smokers soon become addict of tobacco smoking due to nicotine and experience withdrawal symptoms on smoking cessation. The withdrawal symptoms include headaches, insomnia, depression and fatigue.

Tobacco smoking has emerged as an epidemic that accounts for the death of 6,000,000 people every year. It is reported that one person dies every six seconds due to tobacco smoking and this accounts for one in ten adult deaths (WHO July 2013). So tobacco smoking is the greatest preventable cause of death world wide. It is anticipated that if effective measures are not taken to prevent tobacco smoking then by year 2030 tobacco smoking will contribute to more than eight million deaths every year. Other than mortality tobacco smoking causes morbidity in terms of chronic lung diseases, broncheictasis, emphysema and lung malignancies. Tobacco smoking is an economic burden that accounts for increased costs in the health care. Tobacco smoking can be thought of a silent killer as its consequences are long term (see Appendix A). After several years or decades of smoking smokers end up with lung morbidities and malignancies. It is reported by World Health Organization (WHO) that tobacco smoking caused one million deaths in 20th century and if the existing trends continue then the death toll will reach to one billion for this century.

After reviewing the world statistics in general we will study smoking trends in the Great Britain followed by statistics of Harrow. According to ASH (action on smoking and health) statistics of November 2013 the number of adult smokers in the United Kingdom is 10,000,000 which are equal to around 1/6th of the UK population. Regarding the gender distribution, 22% of adult men and 19% of adult women in the United Kingdom smoke. The gender trends among young girls and boys can be seen in Appendix B. Talking about the statistics of young smokers, ASH reports that more than 200,000 children start smoking between the ages of eleven to fifteen years although selling cigarette to under age (<18) is illegal in the United Kingdom. The smoking trends vary in the United Kingdom. Tobacco smoking was most prevalent in Yorkshire and Humber (22.7%) whereas London and the South East had least prevalence (18%) in ...